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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1899 | 42 |
42 stories matching small
- The Great Skilled Labor Shortage: Why Seattle’s Builders Are Paying $4 a Day
As construction booms in Magnolia and Bellevue, local employers are desperate for carpenters and masons, driving wages up to unprecedented levels.
- The Uncharted Drift of the Little Lorenson
A schooner, untethered by high winds, nearly wreaks havoc in the Seattle harbor after snapping its lines near the waterfront.
- The Sawmill Strike That Never Happened
When mill workers in Seattle banded together for a small wage increase, they didn't need to walk out to get it.
- The Circus Comes to Town: Seattle’s First Big Top Spectacle
As the Hingling Bros. circus unloads its menagerie and performers in the Northern Pacific yards, locals gather for a parade and show that promises 'everything advertised.'
- The Justice of the Peace Who Found His Salary Unjust
A Seattle judge argues that new laws have expanded his workload beyond his original pay grade, testing the limits of municipal budgeting.
- The Forty-Five Day Fast of a Welsh Miner
Seeking a cure for chronic throat trouble, a local man attempts an extreme medical fast under the guidance of a physician.
- The Great Timber Truce: Tacoma Mills Shut Down for a Week to Save Prices
In a rare display of unity, Tacoma’s logging camps and sawmills have agreed to a seven-day shutdown. While workers face temporary unemployment, the industry claims this 'paradoxical' move is the only way to prevent lumber prices from collapsing.
- Tragedy in a Tin of Pills
When a toddler in a historic Washington town mistook medicinal pills for candy, a medical error turned into a heartbreak that echoed across the community.
- A Barroom Brawl on Washington Street
A morphine-addicted laborer brings chaos to a downtown saloon, highlighting the volatile daily life of Seattle's waterfront workers in 1899.
- The Dog That Saved a Family from the Flames
A loyal terrier’s frantic barking alerted the occupants of a Seattle home to a midnight fire, saving ten lives when silence would have meant death.
- The Mystery of the Drifting Boat: A Father’s Search for His Son
Albert Milloy identifies a found vessel on Lake Washington as belonging to his missing father, sparking a search that bridges the gap between domestic worry and the city's bustling waterfront.
- The Burglar Who Hid Evidence in His Shoes
Detectives tracking a prolific Seattle house-breaker finally cornered him in a Second Avenue drug store, discovering a curious stash of keys hidden in his footwear.
- The Dock That Swallowed Five: A Narrow Escape on Madison Street
In a sudden collapse that sent debris crashing into the Sound, five people survived by inches when a poorly constructed lunchroom and menagerie annex gave way beneath them.
- The Judge and the Colony: A Disputed Gift of Land
When a federal judge handed over corporate land to a group of thrifty farmers in the Yakima Valley, he set a precedent for civic cooperation.
- The Fire Fiend Stalks Seattle's Waterfront
A witness spots a mysterious arsonist fleeing the Western Mill in a rowboat, stoking fears of a serial firebug terrorizing the city's timber industry.
- The Revenue Agent’s Cigar Seizure
Federal agents seize counterfeit cigars in downtown Seattle, forcing shop owners to pay a 'compromise' tax to keep their stock.
- The Price of Tracks: Seattle’s Early Transit Struggles
Before the region was a sprawl of connected highways, the Seattle City Council engaged in a fierce debate over a new electric rail franchise, pitting public leverage against corporate expansion.
- The Bridge That Saved a Life: A Near-Miss on the Seattle-Maplewood Line
Engineer Harry Bingham’s split-second brake application stopped a speeding passenger train just feet from a fallen horse and rider on a trestle bridge, averting a catastrophe that would have shaken the city.
- The Vanishing of Ida Peak: A Seattle Restaurant Girl’s Disappearance Sparks a Search
Ida Peak, a waitress at the New York Wafer House on Cherry Street, vanished after claiming she was visiting her sister in Bellevue. Her family is left with only rumors and a missing person's description.
- The Gold Rush That Wasn't: Copper River’s Scurvy Epidemic and the Ghosts of the Valdez Glacier
As Seattleites debated housing and labor, a grim report arrived from the interior: men dying of scurvy in the Copper River country, and the recovered bodies of seven explorers who froze to death on the Valdez glacier.
- The Fight to Modernize Queen Anne's Streets
A group of prominent property owners on Nob Hill are lobbying the city for a sprawling, multi-tiered parkway, signaling the first organized effort to reshape the district's public infrastructure.
- The Mayor’s Raid: Seattle’s Gambling Houses Shut Down in One Night
Mayor Hume and Police Chief Sullivan execute a council resolution, closing every known gaming parlor in the city. Was it moral reform or a power play against saloon owners?
- The Floating Poker Game Fleecing Klondike Gold Miners
Returning prospectors, heavy with gold and exhaustion, were systematically targeted by a professional gambling syndicate on the passenger steamers coming into Seattle.
- The Rain-Soaked Fourth: Seattle's 1899 Celebration
A persistent storm could not dampen the spirits of thousands as Seattle paraded through muddy streets, celebrated the anniversary of Manila, and grappled with the 'reckless debauchery' of a damp Fourth of July.
- The Pit and the Claw: A Tacoma Man’s Terrifying Tale of Surviving a Bear Attack
Larsen describes the agony of being pinned in a bear trap, his arm crushed by the beast's jaws, and his desperate fight for survival in the woods near Schomaker.